SDMB NHL Lockout Thread

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s been looming for quite a while, and with no progress in site, it’s now after midnight and September 16th, and the NHL CBA has expired, and the players are officially locked out. So, for those who are hockey lovers:

  1. How long will the lockout last?

  2. When will training camp start and/or the first regular season puck be dropped?

  3. Will the new CBA lean towards the owners or the players?

  4. Will the NHL ever recover from this lockout?

My answers:

  1. I believe the entire 2004-05 NHL season will be wiped out. I personally hope that there’s an agreement in place after the season would have ended but before the draft so that the Pens can get their hands on Sydney Crosby ;), but I see this wiping out a full calendar year.

2)I think there will be a normal 2005-06 season, mostly because I doubt either group is dumb enough to stretch it beyond a calendar year.

  1. It will of course be a compromise, but it will likely lean towards the owners by way of a $3 or 4 - 1 luxury tax (rather than a hard cap). The players have the luxury of playing in Europe or the new WHA, but those aren’t going to really pad their pockets in the long run, and eventually they’ll see the realities of the situation (hopefully).

4)I think it can. The best thing the NHL can do right now is focus on getting a good CBA, and keeping the individual franchises solvent. Once the CBA IS signed, then hopefully they’ll work on getting rid of some of the moronic rules that they have (could care less if I ever see another 2-line pass called!) and get the game back to as good as the 1980’s, then the fans will come back in even greater numbers than before (as unlike the baseball strike, most fans understand the necessity of this lockout).

Your ideas?

2

I was a whole lot more optimistic before 2:30 yesterday afternoon :frowning:

  1. God knows, but probably a very long time. We will probably be lucky to see NHL hockey in January, 2006. (Most) players are sitting on a nice pile of cash, and (most) owners will lose less money in a lockout than they would running another full season udnder the same system.

  2. See above.

  3. The only end I see is binding arbitration, but I don’t believe there’s any requirement to ever go there in a lockout situation. If they do, it will be fair, and probably require both sides to make concessions.

  4. Most important question… and no, I don’t think they will. Not completley anyway. A lot of teams are “on the brink” right now and this will serve to thin the herd a little I think.

3

I saw this coming since before the end of last season. It’s likely that the whole season will be cancelled. Even if they salvage something this year, I think there will be longer term consequences. The NHL already has a tenuous hold on profitability. And a very loose one at that. The league is hanging onto a very minor hard-core fan base and can’t afford to lose the “fringe” fans. Guess where those fans are going? NASCAR, NBA and the great NFL.

The NHL has been working for 10 years to market itself to increase fan base, and now that they had a somewhat decent upswing in support, it’ll be blown away.

As an aside, I kinda blame them for trying to grow too fast without establishing a stronger market. Why the hell does Columbus, Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Miami have a frigging NHL team? These are football regions!!!

4

Anyone want to guess which team will fold first?

I would have said Ottawa because they were bankrupt 2 years ago, but they got an infusion of cash last year with the new owner.

My guess is it will be one of newer expansion teams that don’t have a huge following at home so the lockout will do unrepairable damage to their future home ticket sales. I’m going to say that the Nashville Predators will be the first to fold.

5

I heard an interview (that you probably saw as well) where the leader of the player’s union said in no uncertain terms that he would never agree to binding arbitration, and furthermore he saw no point in bringing in any third party at any point.

Personally, I think there should be no hockey until the union caves on the salary cap. If that means the death of the NHL, so be it, but then the blame would go to the players.

Hockey players are by far the most overpaid athletes in team sports. NHL ratings have consistently been lower than the meager ratings the XFL enjoyed. (That, sadly, is an actual fact.) The reason you pay athletes a ton of money is because they bring in fans, whether by virtue of their amazing prowess translating into wins, or by virtue of their charisma and/or individual records. But precious few NHL players bring in any new fans at all to whatever market they join.

Gary Bettman made two excellent points. First is that the teams are hemmoraging (sp?) money. That obviously needs to be fixed. Most leagues are profitable because of lucrative televison contracts, but the NHL is too niche to bring in the big bucks. They may have had great tv deals in the past, but I’d be surprised to see that happen again regardless of the lockout. There’s simply too many cable choices to justify spending big bucks on hockey, especially when you can get way more viewers televising poker, or even the ultra-cheap reality television.

The second great point he made was the lack of parity. It is a damn good one, and I’m glad he seems to hold it in equal importance with the profit issue. Parity is a huge success in the NFL, and MLB is far more interesting since the wildcards were added, which give more teams a chance. Not true parity, but a step in that direction.

A hard cap is the only way. I’m rooting for a hard cap or nothing. Please, dear god, get a hard cap. How else can my Rangers ever hope to compete? That’s not sarcasm, that’s honestly how I feel. If we can’t buy up every overpriced has-been, we will be forced to build a real team. Then we’d have a chance.

6

Dear God, Ellis. We agree. Isn’t that a sign of how bad things are if one of us can agree with one of you .

PS: No offense, but that’s the most coherent and eloquent writing I’ve seen from a Rags fan in a long time. I guess I hang out on the wrong boards, but you didn’t type “teh” or “1994!!!” even once :stuck_out_tongue:

7

It’s my understanding that the owners can now dissolve the league simply by agreeing in majority and informing Commissioner Bettman.

If I were them I’d dissolve the league, thus nullifying any binding contracts, start a new league using the same team names, set down the working conditions in stone, and tell the players to take it or leave it.

The players are absolutely dead. The owners are in compete control, and the players are incapable of realizing that. If the league calls it a day the players will have to get real jobs, or play for $25,000 a year in the minors, and were they to realize that they’d cave immediately.

8

My random thoughts on the NHL. I don’t care about losing the first part of this season The NHL season has become amazingly bloated with games from October until June. I’ll speak for Columbus: People in this town do not care about hockey until football season is over. Sure, there are some die hard fans, but the Blue Jackets are irrelevant here until after Ohio State football season.

Reduce the NHL season from Nov 15-May 1.

This is a league in serious need of contraction. There are WAY too many teams that don’t draw on the road. This makes it difficult for rivalries to develop. The NHL depends on fan attendance more than television. I’d contract at least four teams. I’d say Carolina, Atlanta, Nashville, and Columbus.

The players are going to take a hit. There is no way around it. Ticket prices can’t rise much higher without driving off even more fans. I attended at least 10 Blue Jackets games in 2000-2001, 1 in 2002-03 and none sense. Even buying discounted tickets from season ticket holders, I’m not getting out of the arena under $75.00 per person.

Hockey is still a minor sport in the United States. Outside of the Northeast and the Upper Midwest, the sport isn’t often played by youth in the United States.

The NHL is only shown on cable television and is a very tough sport to follow on tv. The NHL and the player’s association need to get their act together very quickly or they will become increasingly irrelevant in a crowded sports field.

9

Read an interesting article the other day suggesting the future of hockey lies with a partnership with Europe in a similar vein to soccer. As the world cup showed, there is lots of hockey talent and interest in Europe, and apparently you can get pretty decent salaries playing there now. If there was an equivalent European league we could then have extra tournaments such as a champions cup where the top finishing teams in the NHL regular season play the top European teams. This would give actual meaning to doing well in the regular season.

Oh, and of course the other arguments, reduce the number of games on the schedule, larger rinks …

10

I think contraction is a good thing. I don’t live in the US and I don’t happen to know how popular hockey is in each city, but are the Southern teams really that popular? Florida, Phoenix, Nashville, Atlanta, etc.? Reducing the number of teams, and reducing the number of games will make the remaining games more meaningful.

One thing I’d like to see (although I sincerely doubt it’s going to happen) in Ottawa is for the stadium to be moved from the middle of frickin’ nowhere closer to downtown. No wonder fans aren’t coming out when it’s half an hour outside the city!!

11

I think it is safe to say that the Southern cities suffer from the “fair weather fan” syndrome. I’ve been to some Florida Panthers games and, except for the year they came close to the cup, probably 25-50% of the fans cheered for the opposing teams. Of course, a lot of people move to sunbelt cities from other places and tend to support their old teams.

Although it certainly isn’t limited to the South, I think it is safe to say you HAVE to be a winner to get support. Tampa Bay Lightening games used to be empty before the current run. Many of the Carolina fans from their good year are now gone.

12

  1. Into 2005. I expect a settlement, or at least an agreement to start play, sometime between Thanksgiving (US) and Christmas, with play to start in 2005. Schedule to be 41-55 games. (the 94-95 lockout season had 48)

  2. I believe training camps, for those who are not represented by the NHLPA (AHL players, free agents, etc, some young players excepted last week, notably those rehabilitating injuries) start on time. Again, I expect the first REAL NHL games in early 2005

  3. Depends on the which way you call the lean. If you take one read of the owners, anything short of a hard cap is a failure. By that stance, I think it will favor the players. I do, however, think the players will be worse off under the coming CBA than this one. Rookie salary levels were supposedly going to be rolled back 10 years, all salaries cut 5%, luxury taxes imposed, etc.

  4. I think it will recuperate, but if it goes a half season, it will take 5 years, a full, 10-15. And in some cities, it may never recuperate. The Montreal Expos had the best record in baseball in 1994. They’ve never been remotely the same since.

Are you really surprised? These are the same guys who had baseball out, favorable press as the new game in town, a champion coming off a long drought in the WORLD’S media capital - (the New York Rangers had not won since 1940) and locked the players out in 1994. I mean, baseball was out. Football and basketball hadn’t started. They had a month to display their games to fans starved for sports. They locked them out.

The Pens, unless one of the owners want to liquidate his team for a buyout, a la last year’s Minnesota Twins and Pohlad. Just a guess, though. Some of the Southern US teams are vulnerable too - Miami, Tampa, even with the Cup…

Except on the ice, the NHL has the most parity of any sport.

2004 Cup Semifinalists

Lightning
Flames
Sharks
Flyers

2003 Cup Semifinalists

Devils
Senators
Ducks
Wild

2002 Cup Semifinalists

Red Winds
Avalanche
Hurricanes
Maple Leafs

12 semifinals - 12 different teams.

Sather has to take Junior Dolan in hand, go downstairs to the Amtrak level, and tap dance on the tracks until they find the third rails, or the Acela turns them into a smear on the tracks.

Not in all cities. The Rangers have season tickets popping up now, but not until missing the playoffs 6 (now 7) years running. Likewise, the Flyers, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal - all very loyal fans. Some teams’ fans are frontrunners - the NY Islanders can go a year without a shutout - except when they play the Rangers, and there will be a lot of Ranger fans in those seats - and some you worry about. The Devils’ recent Stanley Cup parades have been in a parking lot surrounded by swamps. What happens if Louie Lam (their excellent GM) leaves and they start losing? (Sorry, ** Tripler** - you’re a true Devil Worshipper, but a lot of people do not care - even for excellent teams)

13

My point was that in the Sunbelt (expansion) cities, you have to have a winner to sell tickets.

14

Hmmm, maybe we’ll get to keep the Cup down here forever.

Seriously, this sucks, but I can’t believe how much these guys are making compared to the revenue they generate. Unless every NHL owner decides to operate as a charity, this was bound to come. Of course overpaying atheletes is just as much ownership’s blame as the players. They’re the ones that bid up the salaries in the first place.

15

Damnit, when I saw the question of who’d be first to fold I immediately thought of my Pengies. Then I thought I was just being pessimistic. Till lurker’s post.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: infinity.

16

I don’t understand what you mean by “on the ice”.

And no, the NHL has nowhere near the parity of the NFL. Bt that’s not surprising, considering the almost ridiculous level of parity the NFL has fostered.

In his parity soliloquy, Gary Bettman tossed out the statistic that the top 1/3 (10 teams) of teams, when ranked by payroll, have twice the chance of making the playoffs as the bottom 1/3 (10 teams) have. That is not parity. Anytime you can make a reasonably accurate prediction regarding your team’s prospects in the upcoming season by looking at nothing except the team’s payroll total, you do not have parity.

The irony is that I’m a Rangers fan. I know about their payroll and their playoff woes. Believe me, I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that as far as reaching the playoffs is concerned, teams who spend more on players have a significant edge over teams that do not. That’s the imbalance that a salary cap would remove, whereas a luxury tax does nothing to address it.

After some preliminary goolgling to locate payrolls, I stumbled across this article which has some interesting things to say. Some highlights:

So far, the NHL has the least parity of the big four leagues.

Regarding the teams you named as demonstrating parity, let’s take a look at their payrolls:

2004 Cup Semifinalists

Lightning: 33.5m
Flames: 35.2m
Sharks: 34.8
Flyers: 65.1

Not bad, but look at it this way. here’s the top 7 and bottom 7 payrolls, taken from this site. I say these numbers alone give you a good idea who is better than whom: (numbers are in millions of payroll dollars)

77.8 Redwings
77.0 Rangers
67.6 Stars
65.1 Flyers
61.8 Maple Leafs
61.2 Blues
60.9 Avalanche
…
32.1 Blue Jackets
31.6 Blackhawks
30.8 Oilers
27.2 Thrashers
26.8 Wild
26.4 Panthers
23.2 Predators

It seems to me that this payroll disparity is exactly that. Parity means not having a disparity. :slight_smile:

Out of boredom, here’s the payrolls of the rest of your examples:

2003 Cup Semifinalists

52.4 Devils
30.3 Senators
39.0 Ducks
20.5 Wild (wow!)

2002 Cup Semifinalists

64.4 Red Winds
49.0 Avalanche
33.0 Hurricanes
48.7 Maple Leafs

“12 semifinals - 12 different teams.”

Very true, and the top 16 payrolls only occupied 5 of those 12 spots. But the “final four” is not what parity is about. Parity is about having a reasonable chance to win games during the regular season and over the long haul. Do the Predators and Thrashers really have that chance? Or even more telling, if they tripled their payroll, do you think they’d have a better chance?

17

  1. One season will be cancelled. They’ll probably resolve it in time for the 2005-2006 season. What’s being forgotten in some quarters is that pro hockey players, more than the players in the other big North American pro sports, aren’t in a huge rush to get back to work. The European players can stay home now - many, from what I have heard throughg the grapevine, WANT the season cancelled - and the Canadians and Americans can play in the Stars league or go to Europe. They’re not going to give up easily.

  2. The start of the 2005-2006 season.

  3. The owners, more so than the current CBA. Most have no reason to bother resuming business under the old CBA.

  4. It depends. The NHL is suffering from an extremely poor on-ice product and overexpansion. If they make the correct changes - dumping 4-6 American teams and changing the rules to make the game interesting again - they will do fine.

Professional hockey will always be a huge moneymaker in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, Vancouver and a few other cities; throw in some mid-level markets like Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis and you’ve got yourself a big league. Hell, you could quite easily have two or three NHL teams just in the Toronto area - you could have a six or eight team Canadian conference, plus six or eight U.S. teams, and you’re good to go. There will be an NHL in one form or another, even if it doesn’t have franchises in Anaheim and Fort Lauderdale. If the NHL died tomorrow you would have entrepreneurs lined up to start a new NHL based in those core cities.

18

Well, I’m going to have to disagree with this one. Yes, the Penguins are not the richest team in the NHL, but they have been preparing for this eventuality for a very long time, and have a good nest egg to sit on, plus revenue from a VERY successful Wilkes-Barre/Scranton AHL team, so they’ll be just fine. Pittsburgh probably hasn’t been as faithful in attending games as we should have been, but with nosebleed seats at $45 minimum (they’ve since been lowered), can anyone blame us?

19

All I can say is this:

these petty squabbles leave us true hockey fans such as myself, lurkernomore[sub]I hate to drag you into this one, this way. . .[/sub], hardygrrl, and plenty of other Dopers left alone on the ice–and it’s a lonely game when you skate alone. . .

I see the point of the owners, and I see the point of the players. I lean towards the owners in that if you work for ‘the company’, you should share in its profits. If you take a loss when the company does, c’est la vie.

If the mobilization could happen quickly enough, I would support the NHL bringing up the “reserves” from the IHL and AHL to play in the ‘big leagues’ while the “true talents” go suck an egg. That’s the one thing I like about hockey: it’s a fluid, non-stop game, but you have some genuine stars that have never made it into the NHL but still play like they have some magic.

As much as I respect the guys that make the game happen, I have to side with my business-like nature: You win or lose with your club. Tie their salaries to the revenues of the club. I fully appreciate the spectre of local pricing for tickets, the pricing of merchandising, but if you want to earn more dollars, earn a few extra points on the ice.

Call me crazy.

Tripler
Aw shit, I’ll be the drunken Zamboni driver any day!